His warmth engulfed me, so I sunk into him, my arms wrapping around his waist. Together we walked toward my front door, him taking care of me, making sure I was okay for just a little longer. It was exactly what I needed.
Jared stopped short, causing me stop with him. I hadn’t seen her before, but sitting on my porch, her back to the door, her eyes close and earbuds in her ears was Marley. What was she doing there?
“Mar?” I called out to her, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. I thought she might be asleep.
Jared immediately pulled away from me, and I stepped forward, leaving him behind as I walked up the steps. I saw two large suitcases tucked into the corner of the porch and knew Marley had fled Seattle. I was honestly surprised it had taken her that long. A part of me always knew she’d show up at some point over the summer.
I knelt down in front of her and placed my hand on her knee. When she didn’t stir, I reached up and pulled the earbud from her ear. I could hear the music blasting from the speakers at the same moment she jumped and opened her eyes.
I smiled at her. “Hey babe.”
“Cassie!” she cried, practically knocking me over with the force she expelled when she lurched forward and hugged me. “Where have you been?!”
“I went to a Fourth of July fireworks show. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
She was still hugging me. “I’ve been here for hours. Haven’t your parents ever heard of a hide-a-key?”
“No. We haven’t had one of those in years. Besides, the alarm’s on.”
“Stupid rich people,” she scoffed as she pulled back and looked at me. “Did you really go watch the fireworks?”
The look on her face let me know why she’d been blasting music into her ears. She’d had the same reaction upon hearing the booming noises that I had. And she’d been all alone. At least I’d had Jared to keep me sane.
I looked back at him and found him watching me, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts, the expression on his face unreadable. I didn’t know what to say to him, so I turned back to Marley.
“Yeah, I did, and it was awful,” I said honestly.
She nodded. “I know. I couldn’t take it, so I started playing Taylor really loud to drown it out. She helped.”
I smiled. Marley was a huge Taylor Swift fan, and I loved her for it. For a tough girl, she had a major soft side when it came to love.
“She always does,” I said as Marley peeked over my shoulder.
“Who’s the hottie?”
“That’s Jared.”
“Oh, right, Jared. He’s totally cute. Way to go, girl,” she whispered, cracking a smile at me before she looked over her shoulder at him. “Hi Jared.”
“Hi,” he said warily, obviously not knowing who she was.
Marley looked back at me. “Did I ruin your plans with him? I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were, um, on a date. Were you on a date?”
I laughed without humor and shook my head. “Definitely not,” I said resolutely, knowing it was the truth, even though it tore me up inside.
Marley frowned. “Why not? He’s totally cute.”
I moved my shoulders in a small shrug. “He doesn’t like me in that way, apparently.”
Marley’s frown twisted into an expression of irritation and disbelief. “Then he’s an idiot and an asshole.”
I sighed. “No, he’s not,” I said, letting Marley know with those three words how sad I was that Jared didn’t want me. And that was the truth. I was just plain sad. I stood up then and reached my hands out to pull Marley to standing. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
She looked over at Jared with an expression of distaste and said, “Fine, if you must.”
“Be nice,” I told her as I put my arm around her.
“I will,” she promised as she put hers around me, and we walked back down the front steps together. “But in my head I’m secretly hating him.”
I wished I could hate him, but I couldn’t. Looking at him standing on my driveway, I knew the last thing I felt toward him was hatred.
“Jared, this is my best friend, Marley,” I said when we reached him. “Marley, this is Jared. We work together.”
I figured it was as good a time as any to start labeling Jared as who he was – my co-worker. I wasn’t even sure we could be friends anymore after what had happened between us. Just the thought of that made my heart sink.
“Nice to meet you,” Jared said to Marley in that formal, polite way of his that was so adorable it made my heart ache as he stuck out his hand for her to shake.
She looked at it for a few seconds before she shook it.
“You too,” she said quickly, doing her best to mask her irritation with him for rejecting me. I loved her for being on my side, solidarity and all. Then she turned to me. “Can we go inside now? I want to take a bubble bath and watch a movie.”
I nodded. “Sure. Definitely,” I said, looking up at Jared.
His expression didn’t give anything away, and I knew he’d just put his arm around me to comfort me. It was the same as during the show. He felt protective of me, but that was it. He didn’t want anything more. And as not fine as that was, I didn’t really have a choice but to accept it.
“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at work?” I said to him, and he nodded.
“I’ll be there.”
“You work at ten?”
He nodded. “You?”
“I’m in at four. I’m closing.”
“I’ll see you then, I guess.”
With that, he turned and walked away. I felt sad all over again as I watched him get back into Scott’s car and drive away from me.
“Come on,” I said to Marley as I turned to head back into the house, glad she was there to distract me. It would keep me from crying over a boy who I had such strong feelings for who just didn’t feel the same way about me.
An hour later, Marley had taken a bath, I’d made her some hot chocolate and we’d both changed into yoga pants and sweatshirts. It was just like when we lived together and she’d broken up with a guy. It felt very reminiscent of that, but I knew better. She wasn’t there because of a guy. This was about so much more.
“What happened?” I asked her, and she just shrugged as she sipped her hot chocolate. “Mar?”
She finally looked up at me. “No one at home understood. Not my parents, not my high school friends, no one. I was just tired of everyone looking at me like I was a freak. I knew if I stayed there I’d lose my mind. And I did miss you. I really did.”
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I told them. They weren’t happy, but I think they understood. They said I could stay with you for the rest of the summer.”
“Really?!” I said, not knowing until she was sitting next to me how much I’d needed my best friend all these months.
“Yeah, well your parents were practically my surrogate parents from birth, so it’s not that far out of the realm of normal.”
This was true. My parents were going to be thrilled to see her.
“So tell me about Jared,” she said, looking up at me from over her mug that she clutched with two hands. “I find it hard to believe that he wouldn’t want to be with you.”
“Nothing to tell,” I said, wondering what he was doing right then.
Had he gone back to pick up Scott, or was he sitting all alone in his pool house? I didn’t want to think about him being alone. I knew the fireworks had affected him too. Although he’d held me, his whole body had been shaking throughout the show. He’d had just as many flashbacks as I had.
Marley eyed me skeptically, not satisfied with my response.
“Believe it. We’re just friends. It’s all he wants to be,” I told her, hating the way it sounded coming out of my mouth.
“I don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head as she blew on her hot chocolate. “The way you’ve been talking about him all summer, I thought for sure you’d end up with him.
He’s crazy if he doesn’t like you.”
Apparently he’s crazy.
I sighed. “The truth is, he’s the most wonderful boy I’ve ever met in my life,” I said, sounding so incredibly cheesy when I heard the words out loud.
Marley laughed, and it was good to hear her do that. She’d been so solemn since she’d arrived.
“He’s incredible, Mar,” I continued. “He’s so sweet and considerate. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone like him.”
“What do you mean?”
I knew she didn’t see Jared like I did. She didn’t know him. She saw a good-looking guy with a great smile for sure. She didn’t know the beautiful boy on the inside who’d overcome so much in life and who cared for everyone around him like he didn’t have a choice in the matter. She didn’t know him at all.
I shifted on the couch so my feet were tucked under me. “I mean, you know the guys I usually date. They’re all jocks who are so confident in their looks and their abilities that they have this arrogance about them, which is usually really sexy, right?”
“Like Will,” she agreed.
I nodded. “Yeah, like Will, who was an amazing guy. Don’t get me wrong, but Jared is special.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Special? Like short bus special? I knew there was a legitimate reason if he wasn’t interested in you. It all makes sense now,” she said, grinning.
I reached out and shoved her. “Stop it. That’s mean. No, he’s special, because he’s kind and big-hearted and so unassuming. He blushes when he’s embarrassed, and it’s so adorable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted him to kiss me in the past few weeks.”
“You haven’t kissed him? Are you still feeling guilty over the whole Will thing?”
The Will thing. She made it sound like Will had broken up with me, but I knew it was her way of not saying what had really happened. The alternative was so much easier to swallow.
“Yes and no, but not enough to stop me from pursuing something with Jared. It’s him who hasn’t kissed me. Believe me, he’s had ample opportunities, but both times I’ve kissed him.”
“You did?”
I hadn’t told Marley about what had happened when Jared had come over to go swimming the week before. I wasn’t sure why since I told her everything, but for some reason, I felt the need to keep it to myself. What he’d said to me when he told me he liked me, our kiss, his scar, how he’d told me that he’d had been at Coleman during the shooting, and how I’d fallen asleep with my head on his lap, they felt like things that were just between Jared and me, and it was weird to talk about them with anyone else.
But that was before tonight. Now I guessed it didn’t really matter if Marley or anyone else knew.
I nodded. “Yeah, I kissed him. They were only brief kisses, but they were so good. Kissing him has only made me want to do it again and again.”
“But he doesn’t want to kiss you?” she questioned, trying to understand the situation but in doing so she succeeded in twisting the knife in my heart a little further.
I sighed. “Apparently not. I don’t know. I thought we were on the same page, that he liked me, but when I kissed him tonight he pulled away.”
I shook my head, the memory of how sweet the kiss had been and how horrible the rejection had felt as they mingled together. It was why I’d taken off in the first place. I couldn’t stand there and look at him after he’d essentially pushed me away – again.
“You kissed him tonight?” she clarified, her eyebrows rising.
“Yeah, I did – right before all hell broke loose and I lost my shit in the middle of Wishburn. Those fireworks were no joke. But he broke off the kiss. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want me.”
Marley sat up straight. “Did your memories come back?” she asked eagerly, probably because if I was feeling crazy it would make her feel saner. Two people who were crazy because of the same incident didn’t seem as nuts as if it was just one person.
I shook my head. “Not completely. I remembered some of the sounds, but that was it, and let me tell you, they were horrifying.” I shivered. “I’m not sure I want to remember the rest.”
In the distance I could hear fireworks going off around town. It sounded like a war zone, and it did nothing for my nerves that had been rattled earlier. I turned on the stereo in an effort to drown out the sound, grateful for comforting sounds of the Mayday Parade song that filled the room.
“You don’t want to remember,” Marley said resolutely. “Trust me.
“I know.”
“So how do you know Jared doesn’t want you? Did he tell you that?” she asked then, circling our conversation back to where it had started so we didn’t have to talk about the shooting.
“No, but I can just tell,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s fine. We’ll just be friends. I’ll give him some space, let the kiss settle, and we’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t sure if it would be that easy, but it wasn’t like I had any other options.
“It’s a good thing I’m here then. I can find lots of distractions for us to take your mind off of him.”
I smiled, truly grateful that she was there. “I know you can, and I’m counting on you to do just that. Jared’s kind of consumed my whole summer, but I think I need to put some distance between us if I want to get over him.”
She grinned. I was speaking her language now. “Or, you can try and make him jealous, make him want you, you know?”
I shook my head. “Jared’s not the jealous type. He doesn’t play games. And if he doesn’t want to be with me, then I can’t do anything about it. I think I just need some space.”
“That I can do. Your party planner is at your service. We’ll be so busy shopping and getting mani/pedis and meeting up with our old friends that you won’t have time to think about Jared.”
I nodded, although those were the things I’d avoided doing all summer. But maybe now that Marley was with me, I wouldn’t feel so weird about getting back to my normal life. Maybe I could find a way to move forward. Truthfully, I’d wanted to move forward with Jared, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“I have to work tomorrow, but I’m yours before and after,” I told her.
“Deal,” she said, grinning at me. I could see plans already forming in her mind. I knew it was how she distracted herself and forced herself to feel more normal. Maybe it would work for me too. “And speaking of work, can you get me a job at Dawson’s?”
“You want to be a server?”
She shook her head. “God no. I want to be a hostess. Can you hook me up?”
“I don’t know. I can talk to Rick and see if he’s hiring.”
“Cool. Thanks. I’ll need something to do and a way to earn money, and that way we can work together.”
I smiled. “I love it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jared
“Hey man,” Scott said when I walked into the house the next morning.
“Hey,” I said, scrubbing my hand over my face.
I’d slept like shit with the intermittent booms of fireworks going off throughout the night coupled with the way I’d left things with Cassie. I’d wanted to talk to her about what happened between us, but with her friend showing up, that hadn’t been possible. So I’d laid in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling and thinking about her. I wished I would have known Scott was cool with us before she kissed me. I wouldn’t have pulled way.
“You look like hell,” Scott said around a mouthful of Frosted Flakes.
I slumped down at the table and rested my head on my hand. “I feel like crap.”
“What happened with Cassie? Is she okay?”
“I think so. I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head back and forth on my hand.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
I raised my head to look at him. He was chewing with a thoughtful expression on his face as he appraised me, waiting for my answer, so I filled him in on what had happened from the time we’
d left Wishburn to when we got to Cassie’s house.
“Well that’s no big deal,” Scott said, shoveling another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “So her friend’s visiting. I bet she’s hot.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty cute, but what does that have to do with anything?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just figured, maybe the four of us could hang out. You know, you could be alone with Cassie, tell her how you feel, and I can make sure her friend isn’t bored.”
Just the idea of being alone with Cassie had me shifting in my seat. I wanted that so bad. Even if I could just hold her in my arms and kiss her for hours I’d be okay with that – anything to be close to her. I was finally ready to cross that line with her since it seemed like we didn’t have any barriers left.
But then again, maybe we did. Now that her best friend was in town, maybe she wouldn’t have time for Scott and me. Maybe we’d just been a distraction since she didn’t want to hang out with her high school friends. Maybe she wouldn’t want to hang out with us anymore. I knew that was a very real possibility. Sure, I’d still see her at school, and we worked together, but it wouldn’t be the same.
“I don’t know, man,” I told Scott. “Her friend didn’t look like she’d be into hanging out upstairs playing video games. I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing she and Cassie do together.”
I was probably stereotyping Marley, but from what Cassie had told me about her and the crazy shit they used to get into, I knew she wasn’t like us.
“You said the same thing about Cassie,” Scott said pointedly.
“Yeah, but Cassie’s different. I don’t know.”
“You’re so quick to judge sometimes, Jared. Maybe she’s cool. Maybe she’s fun, and she’ll think we’re cool guys.”
I laughed. That was the last thing she was going to think. I saw the way she’d looked at me. Cool was the last thing she thought I was. The sneer on her face as she’d shaken my hand had told me everything. She wasn’t impressed.
“What? We’re cool.”
“No, you’re not. You’re douchebags,” Austin said as he came downstairs in just his pj pants.
Paper Airplanes Page 21
